How Social Media is Taking Over the News Industry

This article is about how social media is quickly becoming the most popular source for people to find their news. It shows an infographic about how social media has changed over the years as far as relaying news to people, it gives a chart of where social media places against the other news outlets in terms of where people get their news, and it tells a few top news stories that people have first heard about through social media.

The downside to using social media to get your news is it's not alway correct information. The article says that "some 50% of news consumers have received “breaking news” via social media, only to find out later it was erroneously reported." The article got their information from an online education portal schools.com.


I am by no means surprised that social media is taking over the news industry. I, for one, get my news from sites such as Twitter. When I first heard about the Osama killing, I saw it on Twitter, but before I believed it, I went to the television and watched the news to see if it was true. The article says that television is still the number one source and that is the reason why. People know that news on the television is true. Social media is growing at an amazingly fast pace and it will continue to grow in the future and I wouldn't be surprised if it surpassed television for the number one news source.

Sofi

This article is about a new program called Sofi. Sofi is a program that allows alumni of colleges to help current students with college tuition. The alum invest money in to their school's funding and current students apply for the loan just like they would any other. The alum will eventually get a 5% ROI. Sofi also created a social network where alumni could see the students they are helping and check out what kind of classes they are taking. The alumni and students can also chat with each other; Dan Macklin, co-founder of Sofi, believes that since the students know the person who is lending them money, they are less likely to default on their loans.

Sofi started at Stanford University last year and raised $2 million from about 40 alumni and was able to help 100 students. They are planning on expanding to 40 more colleges soon. Macklin says that the program has helped to build relationships between students and alumni that wouldn't have existed otherwise.

I believe this is a great idea. Tons of students are always in need of financial aid and if people can find more ways to help students, it's great. One thing that was not mentioned in the article, however, was for one, weather or not every student who applies would get funding and two, if not how do they decide who would get funding and who wouldn't. If the program works as good as it sounds like it does then it seems to me like this will be a great new way for students to receive loans and bridge the gap between new students and old students.

Travon Martin Petition Gains Millions

This article revolves around the Travon Martin case. About a week and a half after his death, his parents started a petition on change.org and it soon became the fastest growing petition in change.org history with 2.1 million signatures to date. The site has over 100,000 petitions on it. The petition called for the prosecution of George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Martin on February 26, 2012.

Social media users didn't seem to learn about the case for a few weeks, #travon became a trending topic on twitter 3 weeks after his death.“The overwhelming public outcry has not only brought some comfort to Trayvon’s family, but has prompted action at all levels of justice,” Jackie Mahendra, Change.org director of storytelling told Mashable. “People truly are finding their voice through social media and channeling their anger into action.”

This article teaches people just how important social media can be. Without social media, the Travon Martin case would have probably just been a story on the local news for a day or two and then disappeared, but because of social media, it has become known nationwide. People are not only finding out about the case, but they are expressing their opinions and feelings toward everything surrounding the case. The problem with the media in the case however is that people are hearing so many different stories revolving around the case and no one can seem to figure out what to believe anymore. The hope that comes out of social media being such a huge things in society is that Zimmerman will get what he deserves and Travon's parents as well as everyone else will feel like justice was served.  

Tweeting While Eating

This article is about a study that was conducted that shows more and more people are using social media sites while eating. About 19% of people are on sites outside of the house and 29% using social networking sites while eating at home. Being on the phone has always been thought of bad manners in the past, but the study showed that being on these sites while eating has actually been a good thing for those people. They are finding ways to eat healthier and learning what to eat and what not to eat from friends, celebrities, web sites, etc. David Emerson Feit, Senior Director of Quantitative Research at The Hartman Group, said, "People are snacking more, while becoming aware of what constitutes good food thanks to what’s being shared online."

The study showed that of the 82% of respondents who visit social networking sites on a monthly basis, 49% said they learn about food via social networking. Social networks truly have become a main part of our daily lives lately so it's only natural that they would start to effect more things in our lives than just being social and instead of effecting people in a bad way, it is being used for health and to learn how to better take care of yourself which is a great thing.

As long as this does't interfere with how someone talks to others or their ability to be social during dinner, I think it's perfectly fine to be on social media sites during eating. Sites such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. give you tips on being active, being healthy, and staying healthy and that seems like a great way for people to start being conscious about food. The only thing, one would worry about is weather or not it becomes a problem for people.

The Grammys

The 54th annual Grammy Awards were this past Sunday and were a huge success in broadcast and social media outlets. During the broadcast, the Grammys brought in 39.9 million viewers and 13 million social comments. The number of social comments broke the record set by the February 5th Superbowl game by .8 million comments. Analysts believe these numbers were so great because of the return of Adele to the stage after being out of the spotlight for months after vocal surgery and the tribute to Whitney Houston.

Jennifer Hudson singing "I Will Always Love You" at the Grammys

The social media sites had everyone buzzing about all things Grammys from how well Adele's performance of "Rolling in the Deep" was, how touching the tribute to Whitney Houston was, and how badly Chris Brown's lip-syncing was. They even talked about the outfits, from Nicki Minaj's saint like costume to Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swifts sparkly dresses. Comments were all over the place, but the only thing that mattered was that they were about the Grammys!

The emergence of social media has done wonders for television broadcasts in recent years. Ever since twitter has become popular, media outlets look to tweets to see what people are talking about and those tweets can create buzz around a topic or program. People who are not watching a program but see an interesting tweet about it, may want to begin watching it or find information on it after reading the tweet. Social media is, in my opinion, the new news outlet for all things entertainment and sometimes even news.

Twitter in the Classroom

This article is about shy students feeling more comfortable tweeting questions to their teachers rather than raising their hand in class and how Twitter can be incorporated in the classroom. The article  states that some students are too shy to raise their hand in class and those students feel more comfortable using Twitter to tweet questions to their teachers about assignments or further instructions, etc.

The article came from a study from Southern Cross University in which they tested Twitter in the classroom. Students would tweet the teacher and the tweets would go directly to them in the form of a PowerPoint. Like most Internet sites, Twitter can be a distraction and they cited that fact as on of the obstacles they would face by incorporating Twitter in to the classroom.

While Twitter is a great source of media to get certain information from, I don’t believe it will ever be a viable tool in the classroom. From personal experience, Twitter serves as more of a distraction for random information than it does for anything helpful, especially pertaining to the classroom.

Say a student has a question about the topic they are currently discussing in the classroom but they are too shy to ask it in front of the class so they tweet about it. A major problem with this is the fact that the teacher won’t be on Twitter at that exact moment because she will, of course, be teaching. The teacher probably wouldn’t get on Twitter until the class is over with or even until the school day is over with, and by then the question won’t even be relevant anymore. Perhaps it could be a good tool when a student has a question about homework or a project or something, but that’s what e-mail is for. All in all, while Twitter is a great new social media outlet for news and other information, it has no place in the classroom, at least in its current form.